It's been seven months since Dallas-based Texas Instruments (Nasdaq: TXN) placed its 84-acre Spring Creek campus in East Plano on the market and, now its under contract to a Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm.

Regent Properties plans to begin a massive redevelopment of the campus after the deal closes in mid-November, spending more than $150 million on re-positioning the nearly 1-million-square-foot facility, with a new master plan, facade improvements and interior renovations.

"We're very excited about this property," Regent President Eric Fleiss told the Dallas Business Journal in an exclusive interview. "We're going to overhaul it to create a destination office campus in East Plano."
This deal, upon closing, would be the biggest acquisition Regent Properties has made to date in Texas, he said. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

The acquisition of the chip maker's Spring Creek campus at 6550 Chase Oaks Blvd. is being made after Regent Properties landed $300 million in equity commitments in December to acquire office property in North Texas and other parts of the western United States.

Fleiss said Regent Properties wants to capitalize on the in-migration of companies and jobs into Dallas-Fort Worth by redeveloping the property and marketing it Legacy Central.

The property is even more attractive because it's in close proximity to the State Farm Insurance and Raytheon campuses in Richardson, as well as the Toyota North America and Liberty Mutual Insurance campuses in West Plano.

"We think this property will give us the same, or frankly a better position than what's happening on the west side of Legacy," he told me. "We are at a much more competitive rental rate than Legacy Business Park with existing product."

After closing, the 1985-era buildings in the office park will be completely overhauled and marketed to big corporate tenants, he said. Right now, he said, Regent Properties is marketing the campus to about 7 million square feet of active, confidential deals floating around in North Texas.

The rates are expected to be 30 percent to 50 percent lower than lease rates in new build-to-suit construction. And expanding companies will have the ability to add four-story to 10-story office building to the property, he said.